Spelt & Chia Hot Cross Buns | Vegan, Wheat Free, Fructose Friendly

Hey YOU!I’ve been doing some pretty extensive research over the last few years (thanks to findings and publications by a bunch of mega brainy gut experts), and I’ve recently decided to join the glutard (AKA gluten free) crusade. Why? ‘CauseI want my recipes to be as friendly to your gut –and the trillions of incredible microbes that inhabit it– as possible! As such, all recipes on my site that were written prior to 2018 and contain gluten are currently under reconstruction as I battle away at making them gluten free.

THIS particular recipe, however, is an exception to the above. I’ve personally never eaten a gluten free hot cross bun that I’ve remotely enjoyed, and I’m too happy with this recipe to butcher it with alterations. Besides, HCB’s are supposed to be a treat, and treat myself on Easter I shall. Sufficiently justified? K cool.
On that note, if anyone has ever made or purchased a HCB that is gluten free, yeast free and FODMAP friendly, I’d genuinely love to hear from you. Until then…

So it’s 5pm on Easter Sunday which means two things: a) I’m in a scalloped potato/cheesecake/giant Kinder Surprise/chocolate tart-induced coma and literally typing this post through one half-opened eye, and b) it’s definitely a tad late to be posting a hot cross bun recipe. That said, ‘a tad late’ is how I go about life in general, and this recipe is too good to wait until next year to post. Besides, who doesn’t love a fresh-outta-the-oven hot cross bun at any time of year? If it’s acceptable now-days to eat HCB’s from Boxing Day until Easter Sunday, it should be acceptable to enjoy them for a few (or many) months afterward, too.

These hot X babies do contain a little more sugar than my usual recipes (in the form of coconut sugar & dried fruit), but I really wanted them to taste and feel as close to the real deal as possible. They’ve got just the right balance of sweetness and spice, and the spelt flour lends a wonderful nuttiness and dense texture. What’s more, they’ll fill your home with the most beauuuuuuutiful aroma – the smell of any kind of bread baking in the oven is magic, but the notes of cinnamon, ginger, allspice and orange in these buns will take you to a whole new level of aromatic heaven.

I think the key to getting these buns right is ensuring that the dough gets its full 2 hours of rising time in a warm, draught-free area. I’m certainly no baking wiz so I don’t know whether the rising time or warm environment is more crucial, but the two together resulted in a far better bun texture than the first time I attempted this recipe, when I only gave the dough 1 1/2 hours to rise in a cool kitchen.

Spelt & Chia Hot Cross Buns with Orange and Cranberries

Makes 9 buns.

Ingredients

3 ½ cups wholegrain spelt flour

1 tbs chia seeds

7g instant dried yeast

2 tsp dried ground cinnamon

1 tsp dried ground ginger

½ tsp allspice

¼ cup dried unsweetened cranberries

¼cup raisins

¼cup dried currants

Zest of 1 orange (halve this if you don’t want the orange flavour to be pronounced)

½ tsp fine sea salt

½ cup organic coconut sugar

1 cup milk of choice (I use no added sugar coconut or almond milk)

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

3 tbs melted coconut oil

1 tbs pure maple syrup, to glaze

For the crosses: 40g dark chocolate of choice

Method

Preheat the oven to 180*C. Line a small square cake tin (20cm x 20cm) with parchment paper.

In a small saucepan, stir the milk and coconut sugar over medium-low heat until the milk is warm and the sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat and add the vanilla and coconut oil.

In a large bowl, combine the spelt flour, chia seeds, yeast and dried spices. Wake a well and pour in the milk mixture. Mix with a spoon until just combined, then add in the dried fruit, zest and salt. Use your hands to combine fully and form into a dough with the dried fruit and zest dispersed throughout.

Lightly flour a clean bench space or a kneading mat with a little spelt flour. Knead the dough for 7 minutes.

Oil the original mixing bowl with a little coconut oil, place the dough back in the bowl and cover with plastic wrap (to trap heat in). Place a tea towel over the bowl (to keep light out). Leave in a warm, draught free space for 2 hours or until the dough has doubled in size (it’s imperative that the dough doubles, and I strongly recommend leaving it for the full 2 hours regardless). My house was quite cool when I was making these, so I found that the best place to leave the bowl was on a stool right in front of the heated oven.

After the dough has risen, knead for another 3 minutes. Divide the dough into 9 equal portions and roll into rough balls. Place the buns into the prepared cake tin and bake for 25 minutes.

Remove from oven and allow to stand for 15 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Brush the buns with pure maple syrup to glaze. Allow the buns to cool before piping crosses with melted dark choc. Don’t have a piping bag? See notes below.

Serve the only way you ever should: toasted, warm, smothered with organic salted butter (or almond butter) and with your a cuppa. Bliss. It’s probably worth nothing that you may want to remove the chocolate cross before toasting the buns!

Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days, or freeze for up to 2 weeks.

Info for the irritable

If you’re highly sensitive to fructose, adjust the amount of dried fruit to suit you tolerance levels. You could try omitting the currants and raisins using ¼ – ½ cup dried cranberries, or leave the fruit out altogether if necessary.

Other notes

I used normal organic dark choc for the crosses because I knew it would set and photograph better, but vegans can substitute raw chocolate

If you don’t own a piping bag, spoon the melted choc into a snap-lock bag and snip the corner with scissors. Voila!